


Even Princes need Protection

by Anonymous



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Age Play Little Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Age Regression/De-Aging, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders is a Sweetheart, Caretaking, Crying, Cute, Gen, Hugs, Platonic Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Pre-Episode: Accepting Anxiety, Soft Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Soft Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, This is literally 2000 words of sleepy Roman and exasperated Virgil, kinda? It's not explicitly mentioned because neither of them know what's happening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Tears pricked his eyes and Roman jerked his head up to stare at the ceiling, blinking them away desperately.He always did this. Couldn't do his job, got worked up, started crying like a little baby, calmed down enough to pick up his pencil, didn't write anything down, then cried again. It was a vicious cycle. A cycle he couldn't break as of late, much to his chagrin.If he couldn't break the cycle, he was useless. And if he was useless, Logan and Patton wouldn't want him anymore. And if Logan and Patton didn't want him anymore... where would he go?
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders
Comments: 9
Kudos: 68
Collections: Anonymous





	Even Princes need Protection

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to procrastinate from writing for my two pending series, how wonderful am I? 
> 
> Warnings:  
> \- nudity, I suppose, but there's no detail. It's just Roman getting changed 
> 
> Nothing else comes to mind, but if you spot something I may have overlooked, let me know.

Roman snapped his pencil in half, chucking it onto the growing pile of destroyed stationary. He's been sat at his desk for... he wasn't even sure how long, trying to come up with a video idea for Thomas. But, apparently, creative block decided to rear its ugly head at precisely the wrong time, and now he was stuck with a serious case of blank page syndrome.  
  
Lovely.  
  
He plucked another pencil from his quickly diminishing supply, hand poised to write. The nib made contact with the page, and...  
  
Nothing. How wonderful.  
  
Tears pricked his eyes and Roman jerked his head up to stare at the ceiling, blinking them away desperately.  
  
He always did this. Couldn't do his job, got worked up, started crying like a little baby, calmed down enough to pick up his pencil, didn't write anything down, then cried again. It was a vicious cycle. A cycle he couldn't break as of late, much to his chagrin.  
  
If he couldn't break the cycle, he was useless. And if he was useless, Logan and Patton wouldn't want him anymore. And if Logan and Patton didn't want him anymore... where would he go?  
  
The hot tears burned fiery trails down his face, before he could stop them. He hiccuped pathetically, lip trembling. He dropped the pencil, resting his head on his notebook. The coolness of the paper felt nice under his cheek.  
  
He lay there, breath hitching softly on every sob, hands curled into fists in frustration. His tears bled through the thin paper, revealing reams upon reams of writing from the previous page, almost mocking his predicament. He squeezed his eyes shut.  
  
"My, my, looks like the prince is having a Pity Party," said a voice from behind him, suddenly.  
  
Roman startled, head shooting up to look behind him.  
  
"A full on Misery Mash, without _me_? I'm wounded, Princey."  
  
Roman sniffed, tears still falling. He didn't bother to wipe them away, letting them drip down his chin onto his lap. Anxiety's expression shifted almost comically fast, from a teasing smirk to... was that _genuine concern_?  
  
"Woah, dude, are you _crying_?"  
  
Roman finally wiped his eyes, narrowing them in what he hoped was a convincing 'are you kidding me?' expression.  
  
Anxiety winced, pulling his hoodie closer around him.  
"Yeah, yeah, that's fair. So, uh..."   
  
There was an awkward silence, as he trailed off unsurely.  
  
"What's up? You look... bad?"  
  
Roman opened his mouth to retort sharply, but found that he couldn't get words out of his mouth. His thoughts were a jumbled mess. It was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. He closed his mouth again slowly, sending Anxiety a terrified look. The Side returned his panicked look with an even more panicked one.  
  
"...Princey?" 

He didn't respond. 

"Roman, what's going on?"  
  
Roman shook his head desperately. Why was Anxiety asking him? Couldn't he see that he had no idea either?  
  
Roman's eyes glossed over as he was hit with the overwhelming urge to cry again. All his problems suddenly seemed ten times bigger, and he felt like he was being crushed under their weight. Anxiety was watching him, face contorted in an expression Roman couldn't place. But he didn't like it, not one bit.  
  
So, naturally, he responded by promptly bursting into hysteric sobs.  
  
-  
  
To say Virgil was panicking would be an understatement.  
  
He'd been drawn towards to Roman's room by the sheer amount of negative energy rolling from it, and had decided to check it out. If anything, he was expecting to get about ten minutes of teasing from it, tops. What he wasn't expecting, was to be greeted by a genuinely distraught prince, looking about ten seconds away from-

The air was filled with the sound of loud sobbing.  
  
Oh, only two seconds, apparently.  
  
Virgil watched as the prince broke down fully in front of him, hands reaching up to grip his hair by the fistful, waterfalls of tears pouring down his cheeks.  
  
Virgil let out a string of curses that were most definitely not appropriate to say in front of Patton.  
  
"P-Princey-" he cut himself off.  
  
He'd never dealt with a crying _Light_ Side before. Yeah, sure, he saw the Darks cry all the time, he lived with them, but never the Lights. He was also fairly certain that the Lights had never seen each other cry, considering all that covering up they did. For people who claimed to be perfect, they sure had a lot of unhealthy habits. So, he realised, heart sinking, he couldn't just get Patton or Logan. They'd have no idea how to-  
  
He was resurfaced from his thoughts by a soft hiccup.  
  
Right. Crying. Yeah.  
  
He took a deep breath, willing away all the _thisisbadthisisbadthisisbadthisisbad._ All he had to do was to get him to stop crying. And he couldn't be _that_ different from Remus, right? Just be calm, smooth and collec-  
  
"Hey, uh, do you want a, y'know-" he made an awkward motion with this arms "-hug?"  
  
Real smooth.  
  
Thankfully, Roman paid no mind to his apparent inability to comfort, merely nodding his head, and opening his arms, still sobbing quietly. Virgil tried not to dwell on how endearing the action was.  
  
He hesitated, then leaned down, gathering the prince into his arms tentatively. Roman immediately buried his face into Virgil's neck, who suppressed a shiver that the feeling of tears trailing down his collarbone. He placed a hand on Roman's back, rubbing soft circles.  
  
The prince's sobs slowed, and Virgil counted that as a win, cheering inwardly. He channelled all his inner protectiveness, putting every ounce into the embrace.

They stayed in that position for a while, Virgil leaning awkwardly over Roman's chair, the prince twisting his upper body in order to cling tightly to Virgil. Eventually, Virgil's back began to ache. He loosed his arms, preparing to pull away from Roman, but the Side held tighter, forcing his face further into the crook of Virgil's neck.  
  
And that was how Virgil found himself with a slightly different problem.  
  
"Princey-" Virgil tried pulling away again, only to receive the same reaction. "Princey, you gotta let go, dude."  
  
Roman whined, holding tighter. Virgil huffed a sigh, wracking his brain for a compromise.  
  
He could just... no, Roman would never let him. The prince already hated him enough, he wasn't about to risk it.  
  
But the more he thought about it, the more inviting the option seemed. His back was throbbing now, protesting heavily to being held in this uncomfortable position for- Virgil craned his neck up to look at Roman's clock - ten minutes now-  
  
Wow. Was it really that late?  
  
Virgil surveyed Roman's desk, catching sight of the various snapped pencils and crushed pens littering the surface, as well as the open notebook, stained with tears.  
  
 _What was Roman doing, working so late?_ , the voice Virgil had dubbed his Inner Janus chimed. But he pushed the thought away. Roman was hardly in a state to handle being interrogated on his self-destructive habits.

Anyway. Back to the task at hand.  
  
"Princey?"  
  
The Side nodded into his neck, indicating that he was listening.  
  
Virgil swallowed nervously.  
"Uh, can I-" he made a move to gesture at the bed, but realised Roman couldn't see him. " If you don't wanna let go... can I carry you to the bed?"  
  
Silence.  
  
Virgil squeezed his eyes shut, waiting to be shouted at, to be kicked out-  
  
Roman nodded again.  
  
He knew it. Roman just nodded and he'd ruined everything and now he was going to be exiled from the Light Side by Patton because he made Roman uncomfortab-  
  
Hold on a second.  
  
"You ok with that?" Virgil asked cautiously, just to be sure.  
  
Another nod.  
  
Slowly, Virgil pulled away, earning another whine.  
  
"Hey, hey, it's fine," he reassured in a gentle voice he didn't even know he had. "I just need to get a better grip, hold on."  
  
Virgil walked around the chair and Roman swivelled around with him, arms still wrapped loosely around his neck, making the Side chuckle. He hooked his arms under Roman's arms and hoisted him up, the prince not wasting a second in wrapping his legs around Virgil's waist.  
  
Virgil headed to the bed, shuffling his feet momentarily, as he tried to work out how to sit comfortably without letting go of Roman. Finally, he ended up sitting down on the bed, Roman in his lap. The prince had stopped crying fully now, and was close to falling asleep in Virgil's arms.  
  
Virgil would be lying through his teeth if he said that wasn't adorable.  
  
But, as he looked over Roman's tight, surely uncomfortable costume, he knew he couldn't let the Side sleep like that. He nudged Roman gently.  
  
"Princey, dude, wake up a sec, please?"

Roman peeled his eyes open to send Virgil a withering glare, which, he supposed, was fair enough. The reaction was actually quite mild, compared to the likes of Janus, who threw a full blown hissy (no pun intended) fit every time someone woke him up a second too early.  
  
"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, but you can't sleep like that."  
  
Roman's answering look could only accurately be described as "and why not?"  
  
"Seriously? Your costume is so tight, I swear it's, like, fused to your body or something. You have to change."  
  
Without waiting for an answer, Virgil slid Roman off his lap, relieved to find the prince didn't resist this time. He stood up.  
  
"Where's your closet, Princey?"  
  
Roman blinked sleepily, pointing over to a door which, after a second, Virgil realised was a walk in closet. He shook his head in amusement, approaching the door and opening it. He was met with the sight of racks upon racks of clothes, all arranged in rainbow order.  
  
"You are so extra."  
  
He wasn't graced with a response to that. Sighing, he searched the closet for a maximum of five minutes, before throwing his hands up in the air, frustrated.  
  
"How does he find anything in here?" Virgil muttered to himself, shaking his head.  
  
He walked back out of the closet and snapped his fingers, summoning one of his old band t-shirts and sweats, praying that Roman would be too tired to notice whose clothes he was wearing. He was sure the prince wouldn't take kindly to being dressed in his (sort of) enemy's clothes.  
  
Roman was dozing, chin pressed to his chest in a way that made Virgil's neck ache in sympathy. He nudged the Side awake.  
  
"Here, Sir Sing-a-Lot, got you some clothes."  
  
Roman groaned, but made no move to take the clothes from Virgil's hands, or even sit up, for that matter. Virgil sighed.  
  
"If you don't get changed now, then I'm gonna have to dress you, like a _baby,"_ he said, hoping to get a rise out of the prince.  
  
Nothing happened.

Virgil rolled his eyes, lowering himself into a half-kneeling position that made his knees hurt.  
"Fine. Arms up, please."  
  
Roman yawned, lifting his arms just enough for Virgil to pull off his costume. The Anxious Side unfolded his own t-shirt, before slipping it over the prince's head. Roman's eyes drooped shut, and his head dropped to rest on Virgil's chest. Virgil tugged at Roman's pants, stubbornly ignoring how adorable the prince was when he was tired.

"Alright, Princey, you gonna do your pants or-" Roman shook his head with a tired hum of refusal.

Virgil sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly through his nose. As cute as Roman was being, he was still his insufferable self. He guided Roman's hands to rest on his shoulders, and tugged the Side up to stand along with him. Roman stood, wobbling slightly from sheer tiredness. Virgil really needed to ask him when the last time he slept was.  
  
He tugged the prince's trousers down, yanking them off and holding out the sweats for Roman to step into. If the prince had any issues about being dressed like a toddler, they weren't voiced. He obediently placed his feet into their respective leg holes, and let Virgil pull them up and tie the drawstrings.  
  
Virgil yanked the drawstrings for what felt like forever, until the sweats finally looked secure on Roman's, surprisingly slight, frame.  
  
Come to think of it, all the Lights were incredibly skinny. Geez, what did they eat up here, air? Maybe Virgil needed to grab Janus for a little lecture on self-care...  
  
Later, perhaps. He needed to make sure Roman made it to bed without losing a limb first.   
  
As soon as Virgil straightened up (well, as much as he could. He was still gay), Roman fell into him for the millionth time, wrapping his arms tightly around Virgil's waist. The Side laughed quietly, shuffling himself and Roman over to the top of Roman's bed.  
  
Virgil pulled back the covers, somehow detaching Roman's arms from him long enough to lay him in bed. The prince curled up instantly, hands grasping at the empty bed beside him, as if there was supposed to be something there. Virgil scanned the bed, eyes coming to rest on a lump in the far corner, barely visible in the darkness. He reached out and plucked it from where it was drowning in the sea of blankets and examined it.  
  
'It' happened to be an adorable dragon stuffie, mostly pink, with a large patch of iridescent green scales on its belly. Virgil tucked the stuffie in Roman's awaiting arms, chuckling as the Side buried his face in it. Roman was never going to be able to look him in the eye again, if he remembered any of this. He brushed the hair from the prince's eyes, suddenly filled with the overwhelming urge to just _protect._  
  
...He wasn't going back to his own room tonight, was he?  
  
Heaving a sigh, Virgil snapped his fingers, summoning Roman's extravagant armchair from the corner of the room. He sunk into it, groaning in delight as his back sunk into the soft- was that memory foam?  
  
The prince was extra, but at least he had taste.

He leaned over, double checking Roman was comfortable, before curling up and shutting his eyes. He knew this was not going to end well, sleeping in his (kinda) enemy's room, after changing his clothes into his own and tucking him in with his stuffed dragon, but eh.   
  
He'd deal with the repercussions in the morning. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always lovely to see, let me know what you think! 
> 
> Take care of yourselves! <3


End file.
